The Basque people live in the Pyrenees Mountains which divide France and Spain.
Around 1608, the French government heard complaints that Witchcraft was rife in the Basque
communities of Pays de Labord. They sent Witch hunter Pierre de Lancre to investigate
these charges. Over the course of the next two years, de Lancre precipitated one of
France's major Witch persecutions, killing approximately 100 people (or 600, depending on
how you read de Lancre's records).

With great concern, the Spanish Basque watched the trials just across their
border. At first, there were no reports of Witchcraft in Spain. But as French refugees
flooded in, seeking to avoid the panic, fear of Witchcraft increased. Children began to
have nightmares, dreams in which evil Witches dragged them off to the Devil's sabbat.
These dreams eventually triggered the largest Witch craze of the Burning Times, called
"the Basque Dream Epidemic of 1610." The Inquisition investigated several
thousand Witches during this craze; fortunately, only eleven died.

One of the other triggers of this great panic was a young woman named Maria de
Ximildegui. Maria's family came from Zugarramurdi, a small Basque village in Spain. When
she was sixteen, her family moved to the French town of Ciboure, approximately ten miles
away. Four years later, just as Pierre de Lancre's Witch craze was beginning, Maria
returned to her home town and found work as a servant.

Maria told some wild tales about her time in France. In Ciboure, she said,
she'd renounced Christianity and become a Witch. For three years she attended the Witches'
sabbats until a religious experience during Lent convinced her to return to Christianity.
Her fellow Witches were infuriated and made her deathly ill, so in desperation, Maria
turned to a learned priest. She confessed that she was a Witch and repented of her
"sin." The priest in turn absolved her and gave her Christian talismans to
protect her from the Witches' spells. These helped, but Maria left Ciboure as quickly as
she could.

Maria made no effort to conceal the fact that she'd been a Witch. In fact, she
boasted about it endlessly, to a titillated and astounded audience. No one leveled any
charges against her. She'd repented, and a French priest pardoned her. She was no longer a
Witch, merely a young women with some juicy tales to tell.

Perhaps nothing would have come of these stories. But Maria eventually claimed
that she had attended sabbats in Zugarramurdi, as well as Ciboure. She knew many Witches
in this town, she said, and she was happy to tell people who they were.

As you might expect, this enraged the "Witches" and their families.
People challenged Maria's stories; the villagers began calling her a liar. One day, farmer
Esteve de Navarcorena appeared on Maria's doorstep with a mob of his relatives, demanding
that she stop slandering his young wife, Maria de Jureteguia. Maria stuck to her story. In
fact, she said that she could prove it, if she could speak to Maria.

Esteve took her back to his farm and called his wife outside. Standing before
the young woman, Maria de Ximildegui recounted lengthy tales of the sabbats she and Maria
de Jureteguia had attended. The young wife denied this, over and over again. But as time
passed, the extraordinary detail and length of the servant's story began to impress the
crowd, and people urged Maria to confess her Witchcraft and repent. Terrified by the
growing hostility of her in-laws, Maria de Jureteguia fainted. When she recovered, she
admitted she was a Witch. Everything Maria said was true.

Because of this incident, Maria's reputation in Zugarramurdi soared. She became
an infallible expert -- when she called someone a Witch, no one questioned her. The local
priest made a bad situation ten times worse. He offered to pardon any accused Witch who
confessed and repented. If, however, one of the accused refused to confess, the priest
swore he'd torture them mercilessly. As a result, confessions poured in. Once Maria
accused you, your reputation in town was ruined. Insisting you were innocent merely
invited torture, harassment, and mob violence.

And as more and more Witches confessed, panic simmered in the town. People
began to believe that they were being attacked by Witches. Children dreamed about them at
night. Angered by the priest's "leniency", mobs of vigilantes began attacking
accused Witches. About this time, we lose sight of Maria. The events she set in motion
took on a life of their own; dreams, fears, and accusations spread like wildfire. The
Spanish Inquisition stepped in and took charge of the Witchcraft investigations. Maria was
one of the first people they questioned. She cooperated with them fully, repeating all of
her old stories, and no charges were ever brought against her.

Was Maria telling the truth? Was she really a Witch, or simply a young woman
hungry for any type of fame, even notoriety? We'll never know for sure. The Spanish
Inquisition eventually decided she was a liar. Inquisitor Salazar studied of the
confessions of Maria and the other Zugarramurdi Witches in detail. He found numerous,
gross inconsistencies in their stories -- and learned that another inquisitor had doctored
the evidence, to cover up these inconsistencies. Armed with this information, Salazar
convinced the ruling council of the Spanish Inquisition to put an end to the Basque Witch
trials.

We don't know what became of Maria. We do know that she passed unscathed
through the great craze she helped create. Thousands of accused Witches were questioned by
the Inquisition. Eleven died -- five killed by disease, in jail; six burned alive because
they refused to confess. As at Salem, the only people who died were those who insisted
they were Christians. All of the people who confessed to Witchcraft were pardoned and
lived. Maria was one of them, and as far as we know, she lived out her days in
Zugarramurdi.

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Maria's story is told in _The Witches' Advocate: Basque Witchcraft and the Spanish
Inquisition_ by Gustav Henningsen.